This installment is the latest in a series of conversations with colleagues and friends of Ivan Illich. For over thirty years, David Cayley worked for the Canadian Broadcasting Company, producing numerous interview and documentary programs, including two programs devoted to Illich’s work.
Apologies if I went off at a tangent about the rot starting with Benedict. I listened to the Critical Orthodoxy programme again, which makes it clear (I think) that Illich thought things went off the rails with Duns Scotus, after Aquinas. Not sure what DS said to make that happen. The key I think is TA’s revelation (6 December 1263, I think) that all he had done / written / thought to that point was “straw”. He then shut up and died 3 months later.
And all this led me to Cayley’s 5 part series on Simone Weil, which is wonderful, especially Part 4
Yes, in Rivers North he seems to think Aquinas was still managing to balance the renewed emphasis on will/contingency. I actually haven't listened to Cayley's program on RO, however, I have listened to the Weil series, which is great!
Biographies are tombs. Ivan lives! And this is simply the nature of love most people cannot seem to bring themselves to believe. Rivers is profoundly non radical and unoriginal, so deeply traditional to a pre-orthodoxy as Illich said himself, people found it radical. His message is also a performance and unpacking of The Grand Inquisitor. Intense social programming cannot explain why so many people who believe sincerely they are deeply Christian are shocked to discover a man who says, credibly, this is Hell’s advance they are serving. Ecclesial exceptionalism and finally the proud ego underlies the national and civilizational variants; yes the worst corruption is those possessed by antichrist who genuinely do not even know it.
Thank you both for a wonderful conversation. I'm still trying to work out in what sense Illich felt himself to be orthodox - perhaps I need to go back to the Corruption of Christianity talks - and where does orthodoxy begin / end? Pre- or post- Nicaea, or pre- or post Aquinas et al . . . he seemed to object to Vatican II because it didn't go far enough!
I don't know that I am able to answer this question at great depth, but his distinction between the Church as "she" and the Church as "It" might offer a clue. In the former case, he imagines the living body of Christ. In the latter the church as institution, especially as it accrues earthly power. So far as I can tell from his early work where he is still writing as someone inhabiting the priestly function, his language strikes me as deeply devout. In the NY Puerto Rican community of the 1950s, he was a beloved priest, particularly for the evident devotion with which he conducted Mass. His objections to Vatican II seemed especially to center on an inadequate response to nuclear proliferation, so perhaps not necessarily touching on doctrine, etc. Not sure if that answers the question, but maybe adds a bit more context.
It's likely Illich was aware and appreciative of Aquinas’ near-universalistic understanding of the corpus mysticum and how far it was from the post-war position of Pius XII’s Mystici Corporis Christi, which basically wrote Nazis out of the church. Illich would not be unique for seeing the latter as a corruption of the real orthodoxy, which is Aquinas explaining what Christ as the "head of all men" means. Exclusion and creation of pariahs, even if they are Nazis, ghettoizes the church as a special membership association.
No, actually that confirms my impression (so far). I think I’m confusing orthodoxy with theology - I think his theology may have been much more radical than his devotional practice might have indicated. And yes, your distinguishing the church as the body of Christ from the church as hierarchical institution is important - maybe what inspired Illich to start developing his critiques of other institutions such as education, medicine, transport. In fact that in doing that he was precisely criticising The Church, without doing so directly, which of course got him into hot water in Puerto Rico over birth control
Yes, I have the impression Illich was more about orthopraxis, but his theological understanding is hardly disconnected from this. I think he would distinguish what scripture and tradition say that's in line with a real practice of the faith versus what they can be made to say or where certain dogmatic developments have led. He draws a clear line at one point, as did Ellul, and many in the Reformation, that marks off the point where the dogmatic and institutional church corrupted the faith. Being faithful to the uncorrupted but buried tradition is to claim a deeper orthodoxy than orthodoxy.
Thank you, and yes, that is what I hope is the case - just not sure where to find out more about Illich’s understanding of the “uncorrupted but buried tradition” and the “deeper orthodoxy”.
I think he needed to say less about that directly and simply live it; it is recognizable in him and anyone who has it. Simply to love wholly and truly?
Michael, this is a poem I wrote not long ago that brought an answer to part of a question I had been given to carry. I have neglected to share it with David — and I should share it with everyone here too. It is from Ivan and the people who introduced me to him.
Conditions for Community
There must be a threshold to cross to a place of invitation.
There must be a candle for the absent one, like the fifth cup
for Elijah. You must share a common meal and sit face-to-face,
waiting to receive your own image in the gaze of another.
This patient listening might form trust, a conspiracy of peace,
between Radhošť and Radegast, the mountain and the god.
Welcome can cultivate a seedbed for conviviality, eudaemonia,
good living — but only grow if you can receive yourself
as the gift of someone who has read you and written over
your story, marring your self-conception, that puppet drawn
from the flow of your life, how you wish to be seen.
If you can let yourself be distorted by love,
if you can suffer your friends suffering you,
if you can receive, then may dead worlds live again.
I pause over Cayley’s words that Illich has a radical and revolutionary claim about the west, Christianity, its church snd churches, and the state leading into the suicidal coloniality-modernity that is undoing possibly all life on earth.
I do not experience it as radical or revolutionary and never have. It is those things but mainly from the standpoint of denial and opposition. To experience Illich (much like the Christ of the gospels) is to take a side with the disciples or the menacing crowds.
It is not novel or surprising but intuitive and clear — obvious in its rudiments and full of the sense of recollection or recognition. “Ah yes, that is it, as we know so deeply in our bones.” That is my experience of Illich and a few others like him.
Also intrigued that DC thinks the rot starts with Benedict (as in the corruption of the best), particularly as I live in a lay Benedictine contemplative community
Is that accurate? — doesn't Illich say the criminalization of sin and the professionalization of the pastor in the C13 were the point when it had all gone bad. Sure there were limits and problems with the Benedictine Rule, but it was not intended as a code for how all people (as opposed to male celibates) show behave. Making the typical vices of such men paradigmatic for how to police all of society (and maybe women in particular) was the error Illich lays his finger on.
There was a brief reference in the recorded “Corruption” talks to Benedict which I may well have misheard, -understood.
My sense is that “the corruption of the best” starts with Benedict (actually starts with Judas - extreme case - and some of the disciples). Arises from interpreting Jesus’ teaching in a dualistic mode, judging, discriminating, punishing, rewarding - and The Church becomes the means by which this is done. So The Church becomes the “instrument” to bring about the Kingdom. But Jesus is saying the Kingdom is already here, and we become One in it through kenosis, apatheia, metanoia, surrender. Benedict starts to go wrong (I think!) because he says (he may not actually think this) that we approach God and the Kingdom by performing good actions and not sinning. And if we don’t we’ll be punished. The desert fathers knew this, as did Cassian, but the Rule doesn’t deal with this at all. Benedict does say “it’s a little Rule for beginners” so maybe he just doesn’t want to confuse his postulants and novices!
Elsewhere (the end of the essay/speech on Elul) Illich says good things about Benedict. I don’t think he was being as simplistic about a dividing line or great error coming at one moment in one person. Ellul is more reductive than Illich but not that much either. Yes it does sound as if the legalistic or juridical and procedural approach to sin and an obsession with sex in particular is something coming out of Benedict that matters a great deal — Illich seems right about that. Yet it is also a cross cultural and seemingly universal truth that celibacy is (always?) enforced in durable monastic communities which have a greater staying power somehow, seemingly for this reason. John Michael Greer had some interesting recent posts on this at Ecosophia.
“The desert fathers knew this“ - sorry, not clear - they knew that the way is non-dualist, not about good deeds and punishment. Why love and not-judging / measuring are fundamental.
Mary seems to be the original and of course so common and traditional source of misunderstanding. There is very interesting work on that mother-son dynamic which Illich could not fail to notice given his own experience.
Judas understood the terror of grace coming to us as the love we betrayed. Can you received yourself in the eyes of the friend you have hurt? This is what Illich says is the precondition for community.
Apologies if I went off at a tangent about the rot starting with Benedict. I listened to the Critical Orthodoxy programme again, which makes it clear (I think) that Illich thought things went off the rails with Duns Scotus, after Aquinas. Not sure what DS said to make that happen. The key I think is TA’s revelation (6 December 1263, I think) that all he had done / written / thought to that point was “straw”. He then shut up and died 3 months later.
And all this led me to Cayley’s 5 part series on Simone Weil, which is wonderful, especially Part 4
Yes, in Rivers North he seems to think Aquinas was still managing to balance the renewed emphasis on will/contingency. I actually haven't listened to Cayley's program on RO, however, I have listened to the Weil series, which is great!
Great conversation. I was struck by, among other things, the reasons Illich resisted the genre of biography.
Biographies are tombs. Ivan lives! And this is simply the nature of love most people cannot seem to bring themselves to believe. Rivers is profoundly non radical and unoriginal, so deeply traditional to a pre-orthodoxy as Illich said himself, people found it radical. His message is also a performance and unpacking of The Grand Inquisitor. Intense social programming cannot explain why so many people who believe sincerely they are deeply Christian are shocked to discover a man who says, credibly, this is Hell’s advance they are serving. Ecclesial exceptionalism and finally the proud ego underlies the national and civilizational variants; yes the worst corruption is those possessed by antichrist who genuinely do not even know it.
Thank you both for a wonderful conversation. I'm still trying to work out in what sense Illich felt himself to be orthodox - perhaps I need to go back to the Corruption of Christianity talks - and where does orthodoxy begin / end? Pre- or post- Nicaea, or pre- or post Aquinas et al . . . he seemed to object to Vatican II because it didn't go far enough!
I don't know that I am able to answer this question at great depth, but his distinction between the Church as "she" and the Church as "It" might offer a clue. In the former case, he imagines the living body of Christ. In the latter the church as institution, especially as it accrues earthly power. So far as I can tell from his early work where he is still writing as someone inhabiting the priestly function, his language strikes me as deeply devout. In the NY Puerto Rican community of the 1950s, he was a beloved priest, particularly for the evident devotion with which he conducted Mass. His objections to Vatican II seemed especially to center on an inadequate response to nuclear proliferation, so perhaps not necessarily touching on doctrine, etc. Not sure if that answers the question, but maybe adds a bit more context.
It's likely Illich was aware and appreciative of Aquinas’ near-universalistic understanding of the corpus mysticum and how far it was from the post-war position of Pius XII’s Mystici Corporis Christi, which basically wrote Nazis out of the church. Illich would not be unique for seeing the latter as a corruption of the real orthodoxy, which is Aquinas explaining what Christ as the "head of all men" means. Exclusion and creation of pariahs, even if they are Nazis, ghettoizes the church as a special membership association.
No, actually that confirms my impression (so far). I think I’m confusing orthodoxy with theology - I think his theology may have been much more radical than his devotional practice might have indicated. And yes, your distinguishing the church as the body of Christ from the church as hierarchical institution is important - maybe what inspired Illich to start developing his critiques of other institutions such as education, medicine, transport. In fact that in doing that he was precisely criticising The Church, without doing so directly, which of course got him into hot water in Puerto Rico over birth control
Yes, I have the impression Illich was more about orthopraxis, but his theological understanding is hardly disconnected from this. I think he would distinguish what scripture and tradition say that's in line with a real practice of the faith versus what they can be made to say or where certain dogmatic developments have led. He draws a clear line at one point, as did Ellul, and many in the Reformation, that marks off the point where the dogmatic and institutional church corrupted the faith. Being faithful to the uncorrupted but buried tradition is to claim a deeper orthodoxy than orthodoxy.
Thank you, and yes, that is what I hope is the case - just not sure where to find out more about Illich’s understanding of the “uncorrupted but buried tradition” and the “deeper orthodoxy”.
I think he needed to say less about that directly and simply live it; it is recognizable in him and anyone who has it. Simply to love wholly and truly?
Michael, this is a poem I wrote not long ago that brought an answer to part of a question I had been given to carry. I have neglected to share it with David — and I should share it with everyone here too. It is from Ivan and the people who introduced me to him.
Conditions for Community
There must be a threshold to cross to a place of invitation.
There must be a candle for the absent one, like the fifth cup
for Elijah. You must share a common meal and sit face-to-face,
waiting to receive your own image in the gaze of another.
This patient listening might form trust, a conspiracy of peace,
between Radhošť and Radegast, the mountain and the god.
Welcome can cultivate a seedbed for conviviality, eudaemonia,
good living — but only grow if you can receive yourself
as the gift of someone who has read you and written over
your story, marring your self-conception, that puppet drawn
from the flow of your life, how you wish to be seen.
If you can let yourself be distorted by love,
if you can suffer your friends suffering you,
if you can receive, then may dead worlds live again.
Thanks for sharing that, Dan.
I pause over Cayley’s words that Illich has a radical and revolutionary claim about the west, Christianity, its church snd churches, and the state leading into the suicidal coloniality-modernity that is undoing possibly all life on earth.
I do not experience it as radical or revolutionary and never have. It is those things but mainly from the standpoint of denial and opposition. To experience Illich (much like the Christ of the gospels) is to take a side with the disciples or the menacing crowds.
It is not novel or surprising but intuitive and clear — obvious in its rudiments and full of the sense of recollection or recognition. “Ah yes, that is it, as we know so deeply in our bones.” That is my experience of Illich and a few others like him.
Also intrigued that DC thinks the rot starts with Benedict (as in the corruption of the best), particularly as I live in a lay Benedictine contemplative community
Is that accurate? — doesn't Illich say the criminalization of sin and the professionalization of the pastor in the C13 were the point when it had all gone bad. Sure there were limits and problems with the Benedictine Rule, but it was not intended as a code for how all people (as opposed to male celibates) show behave. Making the typical vices of such men paradigmatic for how to police all of society (and maybe women in particular) was the error Illich lays his finger on.
There was a brief reference in the recorded “Corruption” talks to Benedict which I may well have misheard, -understood.
My sense is that “the corruption of the best” starts with Benedict (actually starts with Judas - extreme case - and some of the disciples). Arises from interpreting Jesus’ teaching in a dualistic mode, judging, discriminating, punishing, rewarding - and The Church becomes the means by which this is done. So The Church becomes the “instrument” to bring about the Kingdom. But Jesus is saying the Kingdom is already here, and we become One in it through kenosis, apatheia, metanoia, surrender. Benedict starts to go wrong (I think!) because he says (he may not actually think this) that we approach God and the Kingdom by performing good actions and not sinning. And if we don’t we’ll be punished. The desert fathers knew this, as did Cassian, but the Rule doesn’t deal with this at all. Benedict does say “it’s a little Rule for beginners” so maybe he just doesn’t want to confuse his postulants and novices!
Elsewhere (the end of the essay/speech on Elul) Illich says good things about Benedict. I don’t think he was being as simplistic about a dividing line or great error coming at one moment in one person. Ellul is more reductive than Illich but not that much either. Yes it does sound as if the legalistic or juridical and procedural approach to sin and an obsession with sex in particular is something coming out of Benedict that matters a great deal — Illich seems right about that. Yet it is also a cross cultural and seemingly universal truth that celibacy is (always?) enforced in durable monastic communities which have a greater staying power somehow, seemingly for this reason. John Michael Greer had some interesting recent posts on this at Ecosophia.
“The desert fathers knew this“ - sorry, not clear - they knew that the way is non-dualist, not about good deeds and punishment. Why love and not-judging / measuring are fundamental.
Btw, Judas understood perfectly!
Mary seems to be the original and of course so common and traditional source of misunderstanding. There is very interesting work on that mother-son dynamic which Illich could not fail to notice given his own experience.
What did Judas understand?
Mary, as in Martha and Mary? Or Mary Magdalene? Or Mary his mother?
Judas understood the terror of grace coming to us as the love we betrayed. Can you received yourself in the eyes of the friend you have hurt? This is what Illich says is the precondition for community.
Re. the BVM see Anthony Le Donne